A Recipe for Fun
by nonsequiturvy
Summary: Throw together a Mikaelson witch and a thousand-year-old vampire, and what do you have but a recipe for some good old-fashioned treachery? (Though not without having a bit of fun first…) Behind the scenes of episode 3.16.
"This…really isn't a good time."

Lucien's voice trails behind her, and with it, the sound of an insubordinate smile. "That's not a no," he points out, like the ever-smug bastard he is, though she supposes she could have been a bit more specific.

"No," Freya concedes, coming to a reluctant stop five steps from the staircase. "No, I guess it isn't."

That smile of his will have progressed to a full-blown smirk by now, and she'd rather not give him the satisfaction of seeing it get under her skin. She keeps her gaze carefully trained to an end table as he approaches, drawing close enough for the scent of carnations and roses to, well, complicate matters.

She's wasting time. Her brothers need her, Niklaus is gone, there's a war on its way to their doorstep…and this idiot has brought her flowers.

"Although," Lucien continues, as if he's read her mind, "one has to wonder if there's ever truly a 'good time,' as far as the Mikaelson family's concerned. Your lot seems to know no limits to the number of people who want you dead."

"Present company excluded?" she wonders archly, turning to face him, arms crossed over her chest.

His tongue runs along the inside of his cheek, dimples winking all the while. "Naturally."

"Well. In that case…" She grabs an empty vase from the table and presses it helpfully into his free hand. "I'm sure you wouldn't mind waiting just a little while longer? My brothers and I have some unfinished business to discuss."

"By all means." He gestures grandly for her to carry on. "Don't let me keep you."

She thins her lips into an indulgent smile, muttering a dry "Please, make yourself at home" as he sets down her bouquet and saunters over to the nearest liquor cabinet – another thing they'll never run short on, this wayward family of hers.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about me." His fingers dance between the gin and bourbon, weighing his options before settling on an unopened Pinot instead. "I've plenty of ways to entertain myself while you're otherwise engaged. Where do you keep the blood bags, love?"

She scowls and heads for the stairs.

"Should I trouble your housekeeper for a drink, then?" he calls after her, and oh but when this is all over she'll find some way to wipe that smirk from his face, if it's the last thing she does.

…

Several displays of less-than-brotherly affection later, she finds that Lucien is the least of her worries.

Her wrist is throbbing, Kol had all but disappeared after Davina showed up, and Elijah and Finn…they've picked up right where they'd left off, it seems, revisiting old wounds and long-standing grudges. Freya may not have a vampire's hearing, or a vampire's short-fused temper, but she can guess the nature of their conversation well enough, and it burns her to know that no matter how hard she tries, how much she longs to make a difference, some fights will always be meant to stay between her brothers.

Rebekah would have beaten them back into shape by now.

Her angry musings carry her deep into the compound, and Freya hardly realizes where she'd been headed until she's marching into one of the sitting rooms, tossing herself onto the first couch she sees. The leather upholstering feels pleasantly cool to the touch, and Niklaus had drawn the curtains before he'd gone, shutting away the afternoon sun and dimming the room in welcome darkness.

It's peaceful here. Quiet. Too bad it couldn't have stayed that way.

Vaguely, she registers the all-too-familiar dash of cologne in the air, the sound of something like a bottle being uncorked.

Lucien silently passes her a stemless wine glass before settling onto the cushions beside her. She drains about half in three steady gulps, swiping a careless hand over her mouth while the liquid runs, bitterly dry, down her throat.

"That's…one way of getting the job done," he says, and she ignores him, tipping the rest of it back in a similarly unladylike fashion.

It's irresponsible, she knows, to show him this side of her – impulsive, so easily shaken by things he must find so terribly…human – but somehow, she can't be bothered to care at the moment.

"It must be exhausting," he remarks into his own glass then, "to never lose sight of the good in your brothers."

"Stop talking, please," she sighs, but there's little true bite to her words, and it doesn't dissuade him from getting comfortable, slinging an arm over the couch behind her. Heat spreads across her back, his hand casually coming to rest just within her periphery.

As long as he keeps it where she can see it, she supposes she'll let it slide, for now.

"There are fewer candles here than I seem to recall," Lucien observes then, craning around, and she marvels at how much – how little – has changed between them since they last sat in this room together. Common goals, common enemies. A shared drink, and the knowledge that they may be something dangerously more than just an acquaintance to one another.

He tilts his chin toward the ceiling. "Niklaus didn't share your taste in the decorating, I take it? Hanging dead birds and talismans from the chandelier _does_ feel a tad bit theatrical, even for him."

"If you're feeling nostalgic, I'm happy to tie you up in that chair again."

"Ah, but I'm afraid I'm long overdue in returning the favor," he tells her, sounding very grave indeed, and he glances her way with a solemn expression he doesn't quite sell. "Turnabout _is_ fair play, is it not?"

She hums, scoffing out a mild "I'd like to see you try."

He smirks and sips on his wine.

"Speaking of Niklaus," he says, "it's a shame that he's missing out on all the fun. He does so love a good family reunion – though I doubt he's feeling very fond of Finn at the moment." There's a pause as he seems to reconsider this. "Not that anyone feels particularly fond of Finn, ever."

Freya angles an exasperated frown at him, and he smoothly continues, "With few – and, might I add, _exceedingly_ lovely – exceptions."

She feels a corner of her mouth twitch traitorously upward. "You're laying it on thick today, aren't you."

"What can I say?" Lucien shrugs, and she tells herself it's a trick of the dusky lighting, casting shadows over his eyes, melting the brown in them as he turns to regard her. "There are things that I want, Freya. And I intend to have them, one way or the other."

"Well if an open bar and a front row seat to the latest Mikaelson family showdown is what you came for, then today must be your lucky day." She presses her lips together in her best impression of a smile, pointing her wine glass at the fully stocked console behind them. "Help yourself. I'm sure Niklaus won't mind."

His gaze remains fixed on her. "I suspect he might have stronger objections if I were to, say, borrow something of his that's harder to part with than a fifth or two of his finest Scotch."

She almost bristles at that, the idea that she could belong to anyone other than herself, but he's baiting her, she knows, and the last thing she wants is to play right into his hands. Besides…while her brothers are busy working out their differences, her time might be much more enjoyably spent besting Lucien at his own game for a change.

"I suppose it's a good thing Niklaus isn't here, then," she comments in an offhand manner, relaxing into the couch cushions and leisurely crossing one leg over the other. If her fingers happen to graze his arm while she shakes her curls loose, well, let him dwell on that for a while.

To Lucien's credit, his hand has yet to stray from its spot near her shoulder. "Indeed."

He tilts his head, considering, while she carefully toys with her empty glass. The pain in her wrist has started to dull into a barely-there ache, she notices, and she gives it an experimental roll, making a mental note to thank Kol later for flinging her into some furniture just to get at Finn.

"Allow me, love." Lucien's shifting suddenly, easing the glass from her hand and setting it down with his on the table in front of them. His thigh is pressed against hers the next instant, her shoulder snugly notched between his arm and chest, and this…well, this has all escalated rather quickly.

She arches an eyebrow, meaning to call him out on his boldness, but he's looking down when she glances up, and then his fingers are encircling her wrist with a gentleness she hadn't known him capable of, slipping a thumb beneath her sleeve to massage the skin there.

"Shall I make a certain, recently resurrected someone pay for this?" he inquires, all innocence but for the roughened edge to his voice, settling into her like an itch she longs, inexplicably, to scratch.

"Is this your way of winning me over?" she asks, tone wry. "Bringing me roses, threatening violence against my family?"

"Is this the part where you try to convince me that it's not working?" He smirks at her, a crooked, insolent thing, his fingers raising goosebumps along the inner part of her wrist, and oh, trust any thousand-year-old progeny of her brother's not to fight fair.

"You're unbelievable," she informs him tartly, which only seems to please him more.

"Nothing I haven't heard before, love, I can assure you." His words drop low, lingering between them like a vow of things to come, and she suddenly remembers the need to breathe while his gaze steadily marks out a path on her skin, from her lips down the length of her throat.

She focuses on ignoring the view he's given her, all heavy-long lashes and strong, sculpted jawlines – again, not that she's looking – but even that hint of cologne has started to smell…not unpleasant, and she wonders if he's poisoned her somehow. Spiked her wine, perhaps cast some spell of his own that's tricked her into finding him tolerable.

It would be the most logical explanation.

"You know, this is the dreadful irony about witches," Lucien's musing now, almost to himself. He turns her hand, cradling the back of it into his palm while a finger works toward her pulse point, feeling the way it betrays her and bounds to his touch. "Despite your immense power, you're still so…regrettably fragile."

"Mmm. I suppose you'd better be careful with me." She can't tell, anymore, whether she means it as a warning or an invitation, but she doubts that he sees much distinction between the two.

His hand – the hand she'd meant to keep an eye on – has wandered its way to her hair, fiddling with the ends before growing bolder and trailing a knuckle, then two, across her cheek. His daylight ring chills her skin, but the rest of him is so very warm, and she angles into his side, breathing in that heady scent of leather and aftershave as her face comes within inches of his.

"How does that saying go?" he murmurs into the space between them, and at some point she's let his fingers tangle with hers, tugging her forward, even further into him. "Something about buying the things that you break?"

"Like that time I snapped your neck?" she supplies, smiling fondly at the memory, but she's played directly into his hands after all, it seems.

His answering smile is wicked, triumphant. "Well, then." He leans into her, the tip of his nose grazing her cheekbone on its way to her ear, and then he's whispering there, with a heat that makes her shiver, "My dear Freya, I guess I'm bound to you now whether you like it or not."

She draws back just enough to bring his eyes into focus, the darkness in them deep enough to drown in if she doesn't watch her step, but it's far too late for that now and she's stumbling, falling (hard) into him as he opens his mouth to hers.

A sudden draft is tickling her hair, followed by the dull, splintering thud of something hard colliding with something wooden behind her.

Freya turns toward the source of the sound, one palm pressed to Lucien's chest.

"Kol?" she wonders, half-dazed. She stares while her brother grips the doorjamb with whitening knuckles, veins spreading in lurid greens and blues from dark, vacant eyes as he looks her way, unseeing, fangs unleashed in a snarl.

Lucien grabs for her arm as she stands – no doubt acting under some misguided notion that she needs his protection, of all things – but she shrugs him off, rushing toward the bookshelves and fumbling for one of the cabinets, unlocking an inner drawer.

"Here."

Kol catches the blood bag she throws him mid-air, tearing through one of the ports with his teeth and slumping with plainly desperate relief against the doorframe as the blood gushes out. He sucks it all down within seconds, and the veins slowly recede from his face, recognition lightening his eyes into a more familiar shade of blue.

"Much obliged, sister," he winks at her eventually, the last dregs of blood gurgling as he takes a final sip and tosses the shell of a bag aside. "I'll take another, if you don't mind."

"Looks like you've been holding out on me, love," Lucien comments by the couch while she rummages around for more O negative.

"Not now, Lucien."

She walks over to Kol's side and presses the bag directly into his hands this time, not missing the way Lucien seems to tense a moment, then ease back a degree once he seems reasonably assured that she's in no immediate danger.

Freya lingers by her brother but doesn't ask questions, leaning a shoulder into the other side of the open doorway. She can sense the gratitude in him as he watches her, draining the blood at a more leisurely pace now that the more violent stage of his hunger has passed.

She quirks her lips at him in a half-smile, and he returns it without a word.

An over-loud buzzing abruptly ends the silence. Lucien retrieves his phone from his jacket, staring down at the screen with an intensity that Freya could almost swear she's imagined, replaced the next instant with a curious air of detachment.

He sighs and tells them in a regrettable tone, "As much as I'd love to stay and bear witness to this touching moment of Mikaelson family bonding, I simply must take this."

"Don't let us keep you," Freya says blandly, and he catches his bottom lip between his teeth before raising the phone to his ear, eyes never leaving hers.

"Darling," he answers in greeting, a swagger to his step as he strides business-like past them, "it's so good to hear from you. I take it things are going well?"

His voice travels and fills the open atrium, a series of politely intrigued-sounding "Ah"s and "Oh, I see"s, the occasional "No, that won't be a problem at all."

Freya waits until Lucien's phone conversation has dwindled into background noise before leveling Kol with a gently stern gaze. "Are you all right?"

"Never been better," he tosses back at her immediately, with that same lopsided grin he must have used on Davina in pursuit of her affections not so long ago.

Men. Honestly.

There's still a visible tremor in his hand, his eyes just-missing hers every time she attempts to meet them, but Freya doesn't press the issue, supposing there's time yet to learn how to more effectively play the big sister card with this one.

Kol jerks his head in the direction Lucien had gone. "What's he still doing here, anyway? Never pegged him for the type to just sit around, waiting for trouble rather than stirring some up himself."

She thinks of Lucien, wandering with hands and lips and eyes to places they had no business being, his face too close, too tempting, to hers.

"No idea," Freya sighs, then asks, "Ready for a different kind of drink now, brother?" as she heads for the wine and pours herself another glass.

* * *

A|N: Hi everyone, thanks for making it to the end :)! After watching last week's ep, I thought there might be some potential gaps to fill, some stories to tell about these two before that big bad Lucien reveal. I really wanted something behind that tenderness in the way he stroked her cheek at the end of the episode – I wanted it to be a crude imitation of something much more intimate they'd shared earlier on (when his motives weren't so clear, and it was all a matter of him simply wanting her). To me it's a running theme for them, this too-thin line between longing and betrayal. Anyway, I have a tentative second part to this planned out in my head, but I'm curious to hear what you all think, and whether it would be worth continuing even after whatever happens with tonight's episode. Let me know, and thanks for reading!


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